Gillmore and Richburg: CSU needs more of those diamonds in the rough

Two of Colorado State's most talented senior football players, tight end Crockett Gillmore and center Weston Richburg, got a kick out of hearing that I covered sports for their hometown newspaper, the Amarillo Globe-News, a decade before they were born.

Gillmore and Richburg played high school ball for Bushland, a Texas Panhandle town of a few thousand folks 15 miles west of Amarillo. Not long ago, before the Amarillo suburbs expanded that way, Bushland was little more than a speck along Interstate 40.

"Yeah, it was basically a grain elevator and a grade school, and maybe a convenience store when you were there," Richburg said with a chuckle.

When talking with Gillmore and Richburg it occurred to me they are the kind of diamonds in the rough that CSU recruiters need to discover more of in order to get back to bowl games. Gillmore was named to the 2013 watch list for the Mackey Award (nation's top tight end), while his pal Richburg is included on at least three national award watch lists for linemen, including the Outland Trophy.

It doesn't matter what good players look like, or where they come from, or what their background is. And I suspect that second-year CSU coach Jim McElwain, who can flash his championship rings from Alabama, will at some point land a four-star prospect for the Rams.

But more often than not, recruiters from Mountain West schools need to, well, turn over every bush and find players that get overlooked.

McElwain did not recruit Gillmore or Richburg. They signed with CSU when Steve Fairchild was coaching the Rams. But you can bet they are the kind of late bloomers McElwain wants.

"You look at some guys and (pro- ject) what are their chances of growth, their strengths, what do they need to work on?" McElwain said. "You don't maybe get the guy that's the ready-made product that can go right away.

Weston Richburg, Colorado State football (Photos courtesy of CSU )

"If you look from a historical standpoint, that's the one great thing that Coach (Sonny) Lubick did during those great years at CSU. They developed guys. ... The development part is what we have to do as a staff — we've got to be really good at developing the un- finished product."

CSU signed three players from Texas in February. Running back Bryce Peters from Cypress Falls near Houston and wide receiver Rashard Higgins from Mesquite in the Dallas-Fort Worth area could be immediate contributors. And defensive lineman Brett Jordan (6-foot-5, 270 pounds) from Bellaire High near Houston certainly has athletic bloodlines as the younger brother of 6-foot-11 Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan.

Gillmore and Richburg have told some prospects in Texas that they need to consider CSU.

"When we started getting recruited, we'd go to camps and wonder, 'Why isn't every college program in the country here?' " Gillmore said. "I know there were a lot of guys in West Texas that not only could play at this (major college) level, but in the NFL."

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